Fairytales
are fictional stories that teach us a valuable lesson on the real world. When
it comes to the fairytale of Snow White, many people seem to think that the
moral of the story was that women should clean the house and that they should
wait until prince charming saves them. Many people find this offensive because
it would be a very suppressing and patriarchal view on women, but these people don’t
understand what the fairytale is about.
The central
figure in the fairy tale is the evil stepmom, not Snow White. The moral of the
story is that you shouldn’t envy those that have more, but that you should be
satisfied with what you have, especially when you already have a lot. The
extreme passiveness of Snow White is just to emphasize that Snow White is
innocent and did in no way deserve the way her stepmom treats her.
Because so
little people seem to understand what the tale of Snow White is about, people
keep on adapting the fairytale, so it makes more sense to them.
Disney made
Snow White the leading character and pushed the evil stepmom to the background,
because Disney only makes movies with ‘good’ people as the central figure.
In the
Disney movie Snow White also is a more ‘real’ character than the evil Stepmom. In
the fairytale Snow White is created to answer the prayers of a woman and the
evil Stepmom her ‘witchcraft’ is limited to poisoning and owning a magic
mirror. In the original fairytale the evil Stepmom is a real woman with feelings
and Snow White is a kind of magical creature. In the Disney version the evil
Stepmom turns into an evil witch with magical powers and no feelings and Snow White becomes a
beautiful, innocent human being.
The latest
two adaptations of the movie are a response to the desire to make Snow White
less passive and they have turned Snow White into someone that fights back. In a
way this bothers me, because Snow White now is just another story that
emphasizes that you should stand up for yourself and I would rather see a movie
that would make people want to stand up for others.
Judging
from the trailers they also have changed the role of the evil Stepmom. I have
the feeling they’ve given her a sense of humor. And in both adaptations the
evil Stepmoms don’t act out of envy anymore, they want to kill Snow White
because she is a threat to their throne. Both adaptations move the fairytale
even further away from its original value and I regret it, because the
fairytale of Snow White could teach this world a lot about the difference
between ambition and envy. Ambition is striving to be the best you can be. Envy
is striving to be better than anyone else by taking others down, but in a world
with 8 billion people it’s a battle you’ll never win.
